Best Wood for Furniture

Furniture today is made of different types of materials from iron to plastic and even aluminum. However, for those with a higher taste, hardwood is always the most preferable choice. Wooden furniture is usually timeless and long lasting. Ready-made furniture doesn’t provide much option over the kind of wood used for furniture. If it is custom made, you have the authority to select the material according to your preference. On the other hand, the type of wood must be chosen depending on various factors such as the use and the space. A chair maker will utilize different types of wood for furniture over the other makers. The choice changes highly when it comes to the space that the furniture is going to occupy. This is due to the fact that different woods have different qualities like softness, hardness, flexibility and texture. Below are the best woods to build furniture.

Mahogany – Mahogany is perhaps the most popularly used wood for furniture. The reasons are because of its color and strength. Mahogany could range from reddish brown to pure brown in color. It is utilized in fine furniture making, plywood and boat making as well as making outdoor furniture. This could last for many years and has the capability to resist shrinkage and swelling.

Maple – This is a top quality wood, usually it is very light brown in shade. Its shade makes it ideal for small rooms where more light reflection is required. This wood is extremely popular because of its smooth fine texture. It is utilized in the production of fine furniture, bowling alley floors and kitchen cabinets.

Oak – One of the best woods for furniture, oak is an extremely heavy hardwood and the most popularly used. There two kinds of oak, red oak and white oak. This is famous for its texture of big rings and circles.

Beech – Another strong wood utilized for making tables and chairs. It is a pale shade and so, it could be easily stained.

Pinewood – Pinewood is softwood that is commonly found in various parts of the world. There are lots of different kinds of pine such as sugar pine and ponderosa pine. Both are utilized in producing furniture. This is mostly yellow in shade. It is commonly utilized in making veneer and plywood. This is renowned for its stunning knots.

Cedar – Very popular softwood for making furniture, the distinct quality of cedar is its sweet smell. This smell makes it an extremely preferable for making drawers and chests as it repels insects and moths and also perfumes the stuffs inside.

How to Choose the Best Wood Used for Furniture

There are many kinds of good wood for furniture to choose from. Hardwood coming from the trees of maple, mahogany, teak and oak is well thought out good for making top quality furniture. Redwood and pine cedar produce softwood which is more open to scratches. Furniture made nowadays is a combination of wooden and other components to improve the strength. Engineered wood is also popular for creating furniture these days due to its stability and strength.

Wood Characteristics:

There are specific characteristics of every kind of wood that makes it different from other wood. First is the hardness. There are two kinds of wooden on the basis of toughness, softwood and hardwood, but not all hardwood is hard and not all kinds of softwood are soft. The difference between these two forms is that hardwood trees are flowering while softwoods are conifers. A lot of furniture manufacturers choose hardwood over softwood for making top quality furniture.

Other important qualities of wood might include color, wood grain, strength, stability, moisture content and finish.

How to Determine the Value of the Wood

Understanding the best wood for furniture is not a hard task, but it takes experience and knowledge. With some practice, one could differentiate between bad and good wood. Here are the steps to follow:

Check the wood and try know its type. You can utilize factors like smell, wood color and strength, but you require having knowledge and skill of these. Some species of wood have specific features or colors that could assist in determining them.

Check the grain. Wood grains play a significant role in knowing between different kinds types of wood.

Modern wood furniture is normally made of a combination of different types of wood to add additional strength and cut the expense. When appearance is more essential, some use rare woods. Utilizing many woods makes it harder to get the kind of the wood utilized in the furniture.